Willowisp Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Hi, As most of you know if you're reading this, I have become a bit obsessed lately with William Jenkins and the houses (damn, even the apartments) he was involved in building. Well, today I found out what every mod finds out, that no house is safe from the wrecking ball if the money's right... The Jenkins family generously loaned some info for my party so I poured through it and really enjoyed the scrapbooks of newspaper clippings. I came across this house I'd never even heard of and the newspaper seemed to attribute it to William Jenkins. Since I'm on vacation this week, it was the perfect opportunity to go find this house. I asked the authority on all things Houston, Stephen Fox, and he told me it was an amazing house on Radney Rd. Stephen also pointed me toward the magazine Texas Architect, where I found an article on the house published in 1977. I found out that Robert Griffin was the main designer. Well, with map in hand I headed over to Radney Rd. this beautiful afternoon. Stephen had told me it was tough to see from the street, so when I saw this little winding road and the sign private drive, I got very bold and parked the car to walk up to find the house. I found a pretty amazing contemporary house, but it wasn't the right house. The owner was very nice and told me that there was only one other contemporary house in the area and it was torn down 3 months ago. Yes, the house I went to find was gone. It's not even 30 years old. The lot value is apparantly way more than the house and in this area (Piney Point) they are allowed to split as much land as it was on (3 acres, I think) in half. Goodbye house. http://www.har.com/search/engine/indexdeta...=0&backButton=Y Here are (badly copied) scans of the Texas Architect article from May, 1977. Thanks for reading my sad tale. I feel all grown up and jaded today. Jason By the way, Later on this afternoon I actually got to talk to Robert Griffin and found out that Jenkins had held a contest to design the house and Griffin's design was chosen over all the others in the firm. He was very generous with his time talking to me! He also told me that there were several people who really wanted to save the house, but the money just wasn't there for it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbigtex56 Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Hi,As most of you know if you're reading this, I have become a bit obsessed lately with William Jenkins and the houses (damn, even the apartments) he was involved in building. Well, today I found out what every mod finds out, that no house is safe from the wrecking ball if the money's right...Sorry to hear about the demolished house. One of the frustrations which comes with learning about architecture is the realization that others haven't, and are unaware of that which they destroy.A question about William Jenkins: do you know if he designed any of the garden-style apartment complexes in the Montrose area? The building I'm most curious about is located at 219 Marshall. As a former resident, I'd heard that it had been designed by a locally prominant architect, but never heard a name mentioned. According to the 1958 city directory, these apartments were under construction. The 1959 directory lists them as Kingwood Apartments. They've been called various names since then - most of which are repeatable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest danax Posted March 15, 2006 Share Posted March 15, 2006 Thanks for reading my sad tale. I feel all grown up and jaded today.It's might be what an 90 year old feels like at times; another funeral, another lost friend, some sadness, some surprise at how others who seemed full of life, love and beauty lived such short lives and others with lesser qualities seemed to go on forever, and the understanding that they all go down eventually.I tip my hat to Mr. Jenkins. Great looking house and even at only 29 years old, was a classic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willowisp Posted March 15, 2006 Author Share Posted March 15, 2006 The only apartments I know about are the ones in the scrapbooks. Most of them are big. One of them is next door to the apartments we lived in for 5 years. We lived in Chateaux Dijon, and Jenkins designed what is now called The Oaks on the corner of Rice and Beverly Hill St. (5301 BH St.) Other big complexes include 7111 Hillcroft, 6009 Bellaire, and 3333 Cummins. The cool little apartments I found of his today were at 2043 Sul Ross. Go by and check them out and you may find some similarities. I need to scan in the drawing from the newspaper at some point... Jason Sorry to hear about the demolished house. One of the frustrations which comes with learning about architecture is the realization that others haven't, and are unaware of that which they destroy.A question about William Jenkins: do you know if he designed any of the garden-style apartment complexes in the Montrose area? The building I'm most curious about is located at 219 Marshall. As a former resident, I'd heard that it had been designed by a locally prominant architect, but never heard a name mentioned. According to the 1958 city directory, these apartments were under construction. The 1959 directory lists them as Kingwood Apartments. They've been called various names since then - most of which are repeatable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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